The Prophet

Divya John “The cybernetics of love: A study of Kahlil Gibran”

Thesis. Department of English, Vimala College, University of Calicut, 2007
"What I say now with one heart

will be said tomorrow by many hearts."

Kahlil Gibran
 CHAPTER THREE
THE PROPHET
The cybernetics of love, or the evolution of love

manifested in The Prophet is viewed from a psychobiographical

angle in this chapter. The study, as already mentioned in Chapter

One, is based on love's spiritual growth or grace as expounded

by Scott Peck: "Love is the will to extend oneself for spiritual

growth" (320). In Gibranian philosophy, love occupies the most

important place in man's life. In the midst of the national and

international conflicts that Gibran witnessed during his lifetime, he

could think of only one antidote: love. This is the essence of

The Prophet.

The germination, the sprouting and branching out of The

Prophet reached the readers in the most modest manner, as Naimy

records: "At the end of September a small black book, neat but

unassuming, and costing $2.25, made its appearance on the

overcrowded New York book market" (194). That is how The

Prophet quietly entered the bookshop, secretly conquered the

hearts of the people, rapidly boosted up the sale of the book

and overwhelmed the author and all around him. As Mary

Haskell says, "Barely 20,000 words long, philosophical in nature

and mystical in tone, The Prophet was hardly a book one would

expect to capture the attention of the reading public. Yet

eventually it did" (Bushrui and Jenhns 224). Gibran7s message in

it may be summed up as given in the "Introduction" by Bushrui

and Haffar to Gibran: Love Letters: "a passionate belief in the

healing power of Universal Love and in the Unity of Being" (xi-

xii). This small black book begins with a Prologue in which

Almustafa, an appellation of Prophet Mohamed, is requested to

speak on a wide range of subjects before his final departure.

Before venturing on a criticism of The Prophet it is

necessary to discuss the various sections of the text. It begins

with Almustafa, the Prophet, waiting in the city of Orphalese, for

a ship to take him back home. After twelve years he beholds

from a hill, his ship coming. Overwhelmed with joy, "he closed

his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul." Perhaps the

thought of loved ones in the new land and thought of equally

loved ones in the isle of his birth, deepened his sorrow but

heightened his joy. As he descended the hill he wondered, "How

shall I go in peace and without sorrow?" (1). As he was in love

with Pain and Loneliness, his constant companions at Orphalese,

he regretted leaving them. He had grown up with them for

twelve years and attained grace through them. Conscious of his

heart ''made sweet with hunger and with thirst" he could not
leave behind Pain and Loneliness for "It is not a garment I cast

off" but "a skin that I tear with my own hands." Yet with great

pain the decision was taken: "I cannot tarry longer" (2). As he

reached the foot of the hill, the ship approached the harbour and

he declared to the mariners, "Ready am I to go." Simultaneously,

he heard the voices of men and women from the fields hastening

towards the city gates saying, "Go not yet away from us" for

"No stranger are you among us, nor a guest, but our son and our

dearly beloved" (7-8). The priests and priestesses requested him

thus: "Let not the waves of the sea separate us now, and the

years you have spent in our midst become a memory" and again

they assured him, "Much have we loved you. But speechless was

our love, and with veils has it been veiled. . . . And ever has it

been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of

separation" (8). If spatial distance and lapse of time bring lovers

closer to each other, then that love is timeless and spaceless. The

one, who longs for the other during the moments of separation,

understands that love transcends space and time.

Almustafa was moved, but he remained silent, for he could

not speak his deeper secrets. Though other citizens came and

entreated him, he did not answer them but those who stood near
saw his tears falling upon his breast (8). They proceeded towards

the temple where they met Almitra, a seeress, who addressed him

as "Prophet of God." He looked upon her with exceeding

tenderness for she had believed in him even when he was just a

newcomer. She realized that he had to leave in spite of the love

he had for them and they for him. But her simple and yet great

request was, "speak to us and give us of your truth" so that we

may pass it on to our children and you shall not perish. Along

with that request was another demand, "disclose us to ourselves"

and tell us all that you know between birth and death" (10).

Almustafa asked, "Of what can I speak?" Almitra answers,

"Of Love." Almustafa's pronouncements on love declare the real

spirit of Gibran. His psychobiographical details say that he lived

just for these moments, the moments he could disclose his

cybernetics of love. Many of the sentences in this extract are

meant to maintain and sustain life. The beginning is stunning to

be sure: "When Love beckons to you, follow him, / Though his

ways are hard and steep" (10-11).

He continues in the same vein: "And when he speaks to

you believe in him, / Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden. / For even as love
crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your
growth so he is for your pruning" (10-11). The concept of love

giving pain is commonly accepted but love giving delicious pain

is specially Gibranian. The responsibility involved in love makes

it delightful. Gibran reaches out to great depths as he says:

"Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; / For love is

sufficient unto love" (12). He soars high as he proclaims: "And

think not you can direct the course of love, / for love, if it

finds you worthy, directs your course" (12). There are, no doubt,

lines that refer to purification as a part of love: "He kneads you

until you are plaint; / And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,
that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast" (11).

One is confused slightly with the line, "When you love you

should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the

heart of God" (12). One wonders what the difference in meaning

is. All the same, the idea that in God's heart there is enough

space for oneself and for all others, is a happy thought. The

climax of the passage, "Of Love," is given at the end:

Love has no other desire but to fulfil1 itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let

these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its

melody to the night.

 To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give

thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in

your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

(12-15)

The poet reaches the height of glory in the above-mentioned

lines and the lines reverberate in every heart that has chanced

upon them.

Almitra requests again: "And what of Marriage, master?" He

answers precisely with an indepth knowledge that can be attained

only through experience and grace. This passage on marriage was

shown to Mary by Gibran. It was then only "an embryonic

English poem, which she called "Passage to Men and Women."

Struck by the beauty and truth in it she recorded a part of it in

the journal. She did not know then that "this unresolved, untitled

passage would become the core of the celebrated statement on

marriage in 'The Prophet' "(qtd. in Jean and Kahhl 310-11).

Emphasizing the individuality of the married couple, Gibran warns

them against copying the personality of each other. The idea of

marriage as the union of two bodies with one soul, or two souls

in one body is romantic but unrealistic. The success of a good

marriage, he says, lies in the practice of mutual respect,

maintaining its separateness: "But let there be spaces in your

togetherness. / And let the winds of the heaven dance between

you." When he says, "Love one another, but make not a bond of

love," he also adds, "Fill each other's cup but drink not from

one cup" (16). He is in favour of togetherness no doubt: "Sing

and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be

alone" because real happiness lies in separateness: "Give your

hearts, but not into each other's keeping. / For only the hand of
Life can contain your hearts" (16-19).

At a time when the institution of marriage is being

challenged, the words of Gibran find a place in the human hearts

even today. The popularity of these lines after the First World

War is understandable but the continued acceptance of the same

is simply remarkable. A loving couple experiences the bliss of

marital life when they read together the lines: "You were born

together, and together you shall be for evermore. / You shall be

together when the white wings of death scatter your days. / Aye,
you shall be together even in the silent memory of God" (16).

The climax of the passage is given in the last three lines: "And

stand together yet not too near together: / For the pillars of the

temple stand apart, / And the oak tree and the cypress grow not

in each other's shadow" (19). Scott Peck maintains that it is the

separateness of the partners that enriches the union of a married

couple:

Genuine love not only respects the individuality of

the other but actually seeks to cultivate it, even at

the risk of separation or loss. The ultimate goal of

life remains the spiritual growth of the individual, the

solitary journey to peaks that can be climbed only

alone. . . . Marriage and society exist for the basic

purpose of nurturing such individual journeys. (180)

Peck gives a further explanation:

But, as is the case with all genuine love, 'sacrifices'

on behalf of the growth of the other result in equal

or greater growth of the self. It is the return of the

individual to the nurturing marriage or society from

the peaks he or she has travelled alone which serves

to elevate that marriage or that society to new

 heights, in this way individual growth and societal

growth are interdependent, but it is always and

inevitably lonely out on the growing edge. (180-81)

Prophet Almustafa, according to Peck, suffered loneliness and it

is from the loneliness of his wisdom that he speaks on marriage

(181).

Among the crowd that thronged to meet Almustafa was a

woman who held a babe against her bosom saying, "Speak to us

of children" (20). To parents who fail to appreciate the

individuality of their children he says:

"Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing

for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to

you." (20)

Parents believe that they have a legal and an ethical right to make

their children conform to their ways of thinking and doing. But

Gibran dares to warn them:

"You may give them your love but not your

thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

 You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to

make them like you."

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. (20)

Forcing children to think and act like elders, causes the

generation gap. Gibran was right when he asked the parents to

express their love in self-sacrifice and not in forming laws that

oppress them. Modern psychoanalysis has proved that extreme

possessiveness and overprotection on the part of the parents

have made children weak and unindividualistic. This is in

concurrence with Scott Peck's thought that many parents regard

their children as extensions of themselves. These parents

generally fail to appreciate the unique individuality of their

children, and instead "regard their children as extension of

themselves, in much the same way as their fine clothes and their

neatly manicured lawns and their polished cars are extensions of

themselves, which represent their status to the world." Children

often complain of such parents as lacking in love: "It is to these

milder but nonetheless destructive common forms of parental

narcissism that Kahlil Gibran addresses himself in what are

perhaps the finest words ever written about child-raisingy7(Peck

177). There are lines in the passage on children that make the

reader marvel at the thought: "You are the bows from which

your children as living arrows are sent forth" (20). As he

continues one is impressed all the more: "The archer sees the

mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His

might that His arrow may go swift and far. / Let your bending in

the Archer's hand be for gladness." However, there is comfort in

the last line: "For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He

loves also the bow that is stable" (23).

A rich man pleads: "Speak to us of Giving," and he

answers: "You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give" (24). If

possessions are "things you keep and guard for fear you may

need them" it is like the "dread of thirst when your well is full,

the thirst that is unquenchable." He sounds biblical when he says

that there are those who give for the sake of recognition and

thus their gifts become unwholesome. They have their reward:

"And there are those who have little and give it all. These are

the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is

never empty" (24). Some give with joy and are joyful, some give

with pain and are purified, some give with neither pain nor joy
nor for virtue's sake. Nonetheless, God speaks and smiles through

all of them. Thus giving of oneself is exalted. Genuine Love

gives without calculation of receiving. If it is "good to give when

asked," it is "better to give unasked" and to the giver the search

for a receiver and the finding of a receiver is "joy greater than

giving." The philosophy behind giving is better explicated in the

lines that follow. "All you have shall some day be given." If that

is so, it is better to give now for the joy of giving. Some people

boast of giving only to the deserving. This is a myth because the

trees in the orchard and the flocks in the pasture do not make

choices: "They give that they may live, for to withhold is to

perish" (28). The giver may probe to find out whether the

receiver is deserving but according to Almustafa, the giver

himself should deserve to be a giver, "For in truth it is life that

gives unto life" while the giver is just a witness, or an instrument

of giving. The most comforting part of this passage is to the

receiver. To him Almustafa says, "assume no weight of gratitude,"

instead rise together with the giver, "For to be overmindful of

your debt is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted

earth for mother, and God for father" (29).

The next in order is the keeper of an inn who solicits

knowledge on Eating and Drinking. The Prophet says, "together

we shall rejoice through all the seasons" (31). In autumn when

grapes are gathered for the winepress and in winter when the

wine is drunk, "let there be in your heart a song for each cup;

And let there be in the song, a remembrance for the autumn

days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress" (31).

"Speak to us of Work" says a ploughman and the Prophet

answers that "with labour you are in truth loving life, /And to

love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost

secret" (32-33). Life may be dark for the weary, but it is not so

for those who love work. "And when you work with love you

bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God" (33).

Almustafa also gives a suggestion that to work with love is to

weave cloth with threads drawn from your heart; to build a house

with affection, as if your beloved were to dwell in it; to sow

seeds with tenderness and to reap the harvest with joy as if your

beloved were to eat the fruit (34). In short, "Work is love made

visible" (35). This is the culmination of Gibran philosophy on

work.

A woman approaches the Prophet to ask him about Joy and

Sorrow. He answers that only one who has a deeper knowledge of

life can comprehend both: "Your joy is your sorrow unmasked"

and "when you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you
shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is

giving you joy'' (36). Though it is easy to grasp that joy and
sorrow are inseparable, one is set thinking with the words:

"Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your

board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed." To

believe: "Verily you are suspended likes scales between your

sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at

standstill and balanced," requires experience and grace (37).

A mason's desire to hear of houses is also satisfied with an

answer: "Your house is your larger body" (38). However, the

questions, "What have you in these houses? And what is it you

guard with fastened doors?" are rhetorical questions with

embedded answers (39). Like an eyelid that guards the eye, a

house should guard peace, remembrances, beauty and comfort,

says Almustafa. But, if these are absent the house need not guard

anything. It is just like the eyelid that cannot guard the eye if

there is no eye. The end of the passage on houses is poetical

and soul stirring: "And though of magnificence and splendour,

your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing. /

For that which is boundless in you abide in the mansion of the

sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the

songs and the silence of night (40-41).

 The weaver requires tips regarding clothes. The Prophet

tells him: "Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they

hide not the unbeautiful." He also suggests that, "though you

seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a

harness and a chain." But the final warning is: "And forget not

that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long

to play with your hair" (42-43).

In the passage, "Of Buying and Selling" there is an oft-

quoted message in a pleasing garb "To you the earth yields her

fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your

hands (44). The method also is ready available, for, "It is in

exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance

and be satisfied" (44). How the exchange should be done is also

emphasized, "Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly

justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger" (44).

Almustafa excels in thought when he speaks to a judge,

who wants to know about Crime and Punishment:

I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot

rise beyond the highest which is in each one of

you,

So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than

the lowest which is in you also.

 And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the

silent knowledge of the whole tree,

So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the

hidden will of you all. (49)

However, as he proceeds, thoughts like, "the robbed is not

blameless in being robbed," the guilty is oftentimes the victim of

the injured, "You cannot separate the just from the unjust and

the good from the wicked," make the reader guilty.

A lawyer's plea is answered like an accusation: "You delight

in laying down laws, Yet you delight more in breaking them" like

children building sand-towers on the beach only to be destroyed

by the ocean. Then Almustafa points to the skylark whom none

can command and so can sing happy and blithe while men make

laws, break them, and suffer for breaking them. The Prophet

points to a man who would come to a wedding feast, and when

over-fed and tired would go away saying that all the feasts are

violations, and all feasters, law breakers. The Prophet's comment

l

on such men is that they "stand in the sunlight but with their

backs to the sun." They see only their shadows, and their

shadows are their laws." And the sun is to them only a "caster

of shadow" (53-54).

It is curious to note that the topic of freedom is given to

the orator. The Prophet tells him, "I have seen the freest among
you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff" and his heart

bled for them. Freedom, according to him, is not when days are

not without care or nights without grief, "But rather when these

things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and

unbound" (56).

It is the priestess who speaks again asking for his thoughts

on Reason and Passion. The answer is precise. If there are two

loved guests in the house, "surely you would not honour one

guest above the other" (60). Both Reason and Passion are

welcome guests. So if "God rests in reason" and "God moves in

passion" then both Reason and Passion are God's creations.

A woman desires to hear about Pain, and Almustafa

answers: "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses

your understanding . . . . Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is

the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your

sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in

silence and tranquillity." The physician's hand is guided by the

tender hand of the Unseen. "And the cup he brings, though it

burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter

has moistened with His own sacred tears" (61-62).

A man's request for Self-knowledge is answered thus: "Your

hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights."
And when the infinite depths of the secrets are revealed, "Say

not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."

/ Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I
have met the soul walking upon my path." / For the soul walks

upon all paths" (65-66).

A teacher's request is given a befitting reply that if he is

wise he should not bid the pupil to enter the house of his

(teacher's) wisdom, but rather lead him to the threshold of his

(pupil's) own mind. This is so because "the vision of one man

lends not its wings to another man" (67-68).

About Friendship, the Prophet answers a youth: "Let there

be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit" and

he adds: "And let your best be for your friend, / If he must

know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also" (70).

A scholar puts forth the topic, "Talking" and gets the

answer: "You talk when you cease to be at peace with your

thoughts; / And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude

of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and

a pastime. / And in much of your talking, thinking is half

murdered" (7 1).

An astronomer hopes to know about Time and the Prophet

is glad to inform him: "Of time you would make a stream upon
whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing. / Yet the

timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness, / And knows that

yesterday is but to-day's memory and to-morrow is to-day's dream

(73)-
One of the elders of the city asks: "Speak to us of Good

and Evil" and Almustafa obviously denied the presence of evil in

man. Ghougassian states: "Yet, the old Persian philosophers would

have us believe in the equal principles of Good and Evil. Gibran

discards the Evil principle, on the ground that Life is Harmony,

Beauty, Truth" (Sherfan 340). Gibran surmises that evil is a

transformed good, a desire invested with the features of the

good. The Prophet admits that he cannot speak of the good but

only the evil in man, "For what is evil but good tortured by its

own hunger and thirst?" Then he adds: "You are good in

countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good, You

are only loitering and sluggard." It is a pity that the stags cannot

teach swiftness to the turtles" (77). In fact, stags need not do so

for a stag is meant to be a stag and a turtle, a turtle. Goodness

lies in longing to be your giant self.

When a priestess asks about Prayer he recites the prayer of

the seas and the forests and the mountains, which, he says, can

be heard only in the stillness of the night. The prayer goes thus:
"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that

willeth, / I t is thy desire in us that desireth. . . . We cannot ask

thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born

in us: Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou

giveth us all" (81-82).

A hermit wants to know about Pleasure and the Prophet

answers:

Pleasure is a freedom-song

But it is not freedom.

I t is the blossoming of your desires,

But it is not their fruit.

It is a depth calling unto a height,

But it is not the deep nor the high.

It is the caged taking wing,

But it is not space encompassed. (83)

In order to distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that

which is not good, the Prophet says:

G o to your fields and your gardens, and you shall

learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather

honey of the flower,

But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its

honey to the bee.

 For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,

And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,

And to both bee and flower, the giving and the

receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.

(85-86)

Gibran believed that pleasure is an essential part of life, but not

to the point of confusing it with the goal, happiness. All the

same, pleasure is neither synonymous with happiness nor

contradictory to suffering.

A poet wishes to know about Beauty and he receives the

answer that it is "a heart inflamed and a soul enchanted" and "an

image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear

though you shut your ears." In short, "beauty is life when Life

unveils her holy face" but "you are life and you are the veil"

(88-89).

Thoughts of Religion are welcoming to the less fanatic:

"Your daily life is your temple and your religion. / Whenever

you enter into it take with you your all" because they are "The

things you have fashioned in necessity or delight. / For in reverie

you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your

failures" (91). The Prophet conveys the idea that there is no need

to search for God for he is everywhere, playing with children,

walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and

descending in rain. If you look around you "You shall see Him

smiling in flowers then rising and waving His hands in trees" (92).

Almitra's next question is about Death, and Almustafa

answers: "If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open

your heart wide unto the body of life. / For life and death are

one, even as the river and the sea are one" (93). Death is

seeking "God unencumbered" for "Only when you drink from

the river of silence shall you indeed sing. / And when you

have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. /
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly

dance (94).

As these words were spoken it was evening and Almustafa

descended the steps of the Temple, entered the ship and stood

upon the deck and addressed the people of Orphalese, once

more. Then the ship set sail and Almitra silently watched it

vanishing into the mist. Her soul pondered on one sentence, "A

little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman

shall bear me" (114). If the word "woman" is taken in the literal

sense, it is an anticlimax to all that is said in The Prophet. But if

it symbolically refers to "mother" or "motherland" then Almustafa

means to say that he hopes to live a life of love in his

motherland. Waterfield considers this line to be a reference to

reincarnation: "At any rate, assuming that Almustafa is a perfectly

realized being, he still expects to be reincarnated. ...

Reincarnation remains, as always, a firm belief of Gibran" (260).

O f the twenty-six poetic sermons given by Almustafa, the

one on love is considered the best. It is interesting to note that

Gibran was elated at his own creation. When he read out The

Prophet to Mary Haskell prior to publication, "He didn't read the

one on 'Love' at first" (Jean and Kahlil 315). He first spoke about

the Prologue and read the parts on children, friends, clothes,

eating and so on. At last he began the passage "When love

beckons to you, follow him, / Though his ways are hard and
steep" (10-11). Hearing these words, Mary was transfixed. Gibran

asked her, "Do you notice how full these things are of what we

have said in talking together sometimes years ago?" and he

assured her, "There's nothing in them that hasn't come from our

talks. Talking about them with you has made them clear to me.

And one writes these things in order to find in them his own

higher self. This poem . . . has made me better" (qtd. in Jean and

Kahlil 316). The sermons of Almustafa are all in praise of man.

Hawi considers them hymns, "for although they take the form of
maxims and precepts, they are not meant to lay down rules for

living, nor does their formulator claim to be a law-giver or a

receiver of new commandments. His is a vision of pure light

which sees nothing but the good in man and life" (227). The

Prophet knew that people would say that he came just to praise

them: "Think not I say these things in order that you may say

the one to the other, "He praised us well. He saw but the good

in us." / I only speak to you in words of that which you

yourselves know in thought" (103).

Gibran knew that The Prophet was going to be his most

significant creation. This is ascertained from "the number of times

the book crops up in Mary's journals and in the letters that

passed between them," says Waterfield (254). Mary Haskell's

journal on 8 Nov 1919, quotes Gibran: "You know The Prophet

means a great deal in my life. All these thirty-seven years have

been makrng it" (Waterfield 337). Fourteen months later, on 31

March 1921, he wrote, "That book means more to me than all my

other work." More than a year later, on 19 May 1922, he

reiterated: "It's the only book I ever spent so long on." The

following year, on 16 June 1923, he owned that, "The Prophet is

the first book in my career - my first real book - my ripened

fruit" (337). There are references to his book in several other

places in Mary's Journal. For example, MH Journal, 12 June 1912,

7 Sept.1912, 6 April 1913, 4 Sept. 1914, 14 Nov. 1914, 11 April

1915, 21 April 1916, 24 March 1918, 6 May 1818, 31 Aug.-l Sept

1918, 14 April 1919, 18 Aug. 1919, 20 April 1920, 20 May 1920, 20

Aug. 1920, 25 Aug. 1920, 27 Aug.1920, 31 Aug.1920, 7 Sept. 1920,

10 Sept. 1920, 14 Sept. 1920, 17 Sept. 1920, 5 Feb 1921, 1 March

1921, 12 July 1921, 8 Aug. 1921, 30 Aug. 1921, 2 Sept. 1921, 6

Sept. 1921, 9 Sept. 1921, 19 Jan. 1922, 8 March 1922, 14 April

1922, 5 May 1922, 16 May 1922, 30 May 1922, 11 Sept. 1922, 7

Oct. 1922, 31 Dec. 1922, 2 Jan. 1923, 16 June 1923, 23 June 1923.

There are also several references to The Prophet in Mary's letters

to Gibran, and Gibran's letters to Mary (Waterfield 337).

Gibran's expectation of success was partly due to the long

years of preparation and partly to Mary's boosting up of his

confidence:

And the text is more beautiful, nearer, more

revealing, more marvellous in conveying reality and in

sweetening consciousness - than ever . . . The

English, the style, the wording, the music - is

exquisite, Kahlil - just sheerly beautiful . . . This

book will be held as one of the treasures of English

literature. And in our darkness we will open it to

 find ourselves again and the heaven and earth within

ourselves. Generations will not exhaust it, but instead,

generation after generation will find in the book what

they would fain be - and it will be better loved as

men grow riper and riper. It is the most loving book

ever written. (2 Oct 1923 BP 416-17)

Jean and Kahlil Gibran opine that the embryo of The

Prophet began its conception in Gibran's mind at the age of

sixteen (333-34). Though the publication of it was postponed time

and time again, Gibran had his explanation too: "After those I'll

publish The Prophet. I have the Arabic original of it, in

elementary form, that I did when I was sixteen years old. It is

full of the sacredness of my inner life. It's been always in me;

but I couldn't hurry it. I couldn't do it earlier" (8 Nov 1919 BP

323). Jean and Kahlil also point to Josephine Peabody's prophetic

poem on Gibran about two decades before he published The

Prophet. This eleven-stanza poem was initially entitled "His

Boyhood" and later changed to "The Prophet." Though Gibran

had been referring to his most important work as "The Counsels,"

Josephine's earlier label must have been in his mind. The

tenderness and respect shown by such a remarkable woman

perhaps caused the seeds of The Prophet to sprout out.

 The perfection of the written lines makes the reader

wonder at the natural flow of dignified words. The long gestation

of The Prophet is traced by Robin Waterfield from Mary's Journal.

"Rather than sitting down and writing actively, forcing the words

to come, Gibran took many years over the book, waiting always

for particular moments of inspiration" (254). This being his

<<
magnum opus" it was a preoccupation for a long period. He had

written to Mary about it:

A voice is shaping itself in my soul and I am waiting

for words. My one desire now is to find the right

form, the right garment that would cling to the

human ears. The world is hungry, Mary; and if this

thing is bread it will find a place in the heart of the

world, and if it is not bread, it will at least make the

hunger of world deeper and higher. (6 Jan 1916 BP

264)

As days passed the voice became clearer and clearer and he was

able to write, "Yes, the big piece of English work I wrote you

about has been brooding in me for 18 months or more. . . . It is

to have twenty-one parts; I have written sixteen of them" (6 May

1918 BP 303). This was the first time Gibran had given the title
"The Prophet" but he did not offer any explanation for the

change. Whether Mary was unaware of Josephine's prophecy years

back or whether she knew it and so disliked it, is not certain but

it is certain that she preferred the term "The Counsels" and

continued to use it even after it was published.

The inspiration for writing the book was not only physical

and mental, but also emotional and spiritual: "And now my whole

being is going into 'The Prophet.' That is to be my life until it is

done ...I have imprisoned certain ideals - and it is my desire

to live these ideals. It is not writing them that is my interest. Just

writing them would seem to me false. I can only receive them by

living them" (Jean and Kahlil 337). The desire to live a real life,

instead of talking about it, was uppermost in Gibran's thoughts.

Towards the end of the composition, he told Mary: "I am trying

my best not to be a talker about things;" and he had sufficient

reason for it: "I want it to be so more and more. I want it to live

reality. Better than to write ever so truly about fire, is to be one

little live coal. I want some day simply to live what I would say,

and talk to people. I want to be a teacher. Because I have been

so lonely, I want to talk to those who are lonely" (18 Dec 1920

BP 356).

By the third week of May, Gibran, back in New York,

mailed five packets of poems and pieces of "The Counsels" to

314 Marlborough Street. Attached to it was the request: "I hope

that you do not mind my sending you these things, now that you

are so busy. Please do not give them a thought until you have

nothing else to do" (5 June 1918 BP 309). According to Mary's

journal on 9 September 1921, "He copied the closing paragraphs

of The Prophet and then reread aloud the beginning (BP 366).

They did not know then that Almustafa's farewell to Almitra was

also Gibran's farewell to Mary. This meeting "marked the end of

their face-to-face collaboration" (Bushrui and Jenkins 217).

There was a general impression among the readers that the

English language in The Prophet is Mary's and so half the praise

for the book goes to her. However, Mary was unwilling to

accept the credit that was not hers. Moreover, she admired his

style of writing: "Kahlil's English is the finest I know for it is

creative and marvellously simple. And now he rarely misspells

a word . . . and rarely misses an idiom'' (337). All the same,

"Gibran needed Mary to improve his English. She was the

perfect sympathetic editor, and without her help his impact on the

English world might well have been considerably less"

(Waterfield 255). They often sat together to work, as a result, of

which his English improved considerably. "But he also had Mary

check every phrase of the work: the finished form of The Prophet
owes quite a bit to her invisible hand. Even after the whole book

was written, they worked together in May 1922 on the 'spacing'

of the sentences . . . and of course she read the proofs"

(Waterfield 254).

Several factors contributed to the success of The Prophet.

According to Jean and Kahlil, Mrs. Marie Tudor Garland, a widow

from Boston invited Kahlil to her Bay End Farm where her artist

friends worked undisturbed in a cottage (310). In April 1918,

Gibran informed Mary about his trip to Mrs. Garland's farm, and

announced that his next work would be written entirely in

English: "One large thozlght is filling my mind and my heart; and I

want so much to give it form before you and I meet. It is to be

in English - and how can anything of mine be really English

without your help?" (qtd. in Jean and Kahlil 314). In the idyllic

community of Mrs. Garland he did about two-thirds of the book

which had been brooding in him for eighteen months. All along

he had the feeling that he was not big enough to do it but "In

the past few months it has been growing and I began it" (6 May

1918 BP 303). He concentrated on its thought more than its

poetry. Nonetheless, he cared for rhythm and the right words so

that the thought would naturally be absorbed. During the twenty-

four days at Bay End Farm he almost finished the first draft of

that "large thought." He and Mary called it "The Counsels."

The title of the book, The Prophet, was finalized by June

1919 and the original term "Counsels" was meant to refer to the

individual sections in it. The script was completed only in 1921.

The almost-finished product was preserved for four years before

baking it and serving it to the public. Gibran wanted to publish it

in September, the month of Ielool, and his dream came true

when in September 1923 the small black copy of the book

entered the bookshop

Gibran became self-sufficient as he supervised closely the

photography and engravings of the twelve drawings for the book.

The engravers were overwhelmed having them to work with. He

was confident as "The Prophet" was already with the typesetters.

His confidence encouraged Mary to travel to Egypt with her

husband. Moreover, before going she chanced upon Gibran at the

theatre, Cherty Orchard, sitting with a group of friends and

enjoying their company. His demeanour and expressions with "not

a bit of self-consciousness" pleased her: "I was happy beyond

words watching him." She says in her journal, 30 May 1923. "As

she watched Kahlil that night at the theater, Mary silently

acknowledged that she was no longer needed" (qtd. in Jean and

Kahlil 365).

Gibran was sure that The Prophet would sell because parts

of the book were read at poetry societies and well appreciated.

People requested him for copies of the same. Knopf was

convinced by Gibran's confidence and so he printed 1,500 copies

that were sold like hot cakes. The sales doubled in the following

year, and doubled again the year after. Even during the 1930s, the

post-world-war period, about 13,000 copies were sold per year. In

1944, towards the close of the Second World War, 60,000 copies

were sold. The exact details as records show are 8,109 sold in

1934; 12,539 in 1935; 13,411 in 1937; 14,472 in 1940, 15,911 in

1941; 22,471 in 1942; and in the following five years the number

sold are 43,564, 65,265, 91,400, 74897, and 56,822 respectively

(Bushrui and Jenkins 330). "Since the late 1950s in North America

alone, where the book became a kind of underground bible on

the college campuses, the book has sold at a phenomenal rate"

(Waterfield 257). It passed the million mark in 1957; 2.5 million

by 1965, and four million by 1970. Generally, in the 1960s and

1970s, about 5000 copies were sold every week. "By now it has

sold an astonishing nine million copies in North America alone.

That is not counting the UK market, or the twenty or so foreign

languages into which it has been translated" (257). In general it

can be said that "in the English-speaking world he is known more

or less exclusively as the author of The Prophet, and therefore as

a purveyor of spiritual teaching" (Waterfeld 232).

Writing on Almustafa, Gibran began to realize he was

himself becoming The Prophet Alrnustafa. Jean and Kahlil Gibran

have recorded that Gibran chose not to wear the mantle of a

Prophet. This is in keeping with what is expressed in Mary's

Journal: "I thought that I would use 'Almustafa' once only in the

book - at the very beginning - and through all of the rest of it

say 'he.' 'Almustafa' in Arabic means something very special - the

Chosen and the Beloved too - really between them both - there

is no name in English with any such significance" (qtd. in Jean

and Kahlil 341-42). Bushrui and Jenkins opine that "The poet at

this period was increasingly aware of the defects of his own

personality" (200). However, his staunch conviction that the world

needed a 'prophet' and that he should provide it gave him the

impetus to complete it. Nothing concerned him now except 'The

Prophet.' He called it: "the first book in my career - my first real

book, my ripened fruit" (qtd. in Waterfield 337).

Admirers thronged the author to find out how he could

ever write such a work: "Did I write it" he replied, "It wrote
me" (Bragdon 139). Gibran was also conscious of the magnanimity

of his Prophet, as the drawing shows. He wanted an awe-inspiring

character. In "Introduction to The Prophet" in the work Kahld

Gibran: Essays and Introduction, Sarwat Okasha says: "In the picture

which represents the personality of the Prophet he visualises him

as a teacher of such strihng character, such influence, such force

of vision, such purity of soul as to make him in truth a prophet.

His very presence proves God's mysterious purpose. His existence

justifies and explains creation" (158).

People showered Gibran with many epithets he could not

accept. He had confided in May Ziadah: "Some say I am a

'visionary', but I do not know what they mean by this word. I do

know, however, that I am not so much of a 'visionary' that I

would lie to my Self. Even if I were to do so, my Self would

not believe me" (Gibran: Love Letters 37). Though he did not pose

as a visionary, he was convinced that, The Prophet was his rebirth,

his first baptism, the only thought that would enable him to stand

in the light of the sun. "For this prophet had already 'written' me

before I attempted to 'write' him, had created me before I created

him, and had silently set me on a course to follow him for seven

thousand leagues before he appeared in front of me to dictate his

wishes and inclinations" (Bushrui and Jenhns 186). Gibran had

expressed the same idea to Mary: "This is not I, but the

Prophet" (30 Aug 1921 BP 366). Naimy too confirmed that Gibran

never once "intended to parade before men in a prophet's

mantle" (193). Yet he was conscious of his role as a poet. He

had once told Mary that the difference between a prophet and a

poet is that the prophet lives what he teaches, and the poet does

not. The poet may write wonderfully of love, and yet not be

loving (7 Oct 1922 BP 397). Alfred Knopf, the publisher, too

certifies: "The message of The Prophet is a solacing one - and the

frightening state of the world in recent decades has apparently

created a grateful public for it" (96). By the year 1944 The Prophet

was Knopf's second bestseller.

Gibran's view of life in relation to man and man, finds a

deep expression in these pages. Even the structure of the book

is given a personal touch. At one glance Almustafa is revealed

not just as the Prophet Mohammed or the prophets of Israel, but

as Gibran himself. If that is so, then Orphalese is identified as

the city of New York, Almitra as Mary Haskell, Almustafa's isle

of birth as Lebanon, and the twelve years in Orphalese as the

twelve years Gibran spent in New York, before the publication

of The Prophet (Bushrui and Jenkins 224). Hawi ascertains that

although Gibran was, from the beginning, taking on the role of a

prophet, he was not actually proclaiming it until 1914. In a poem

which was supposed to be an epilogue to Dam'ah wa-Ibtisamah he

stated, "I came to say a word and I will say it" and Hawi adds

"This 'word' is evidently his prophecy, his messianic message to

the world, which he must have thought he uttered in The Prophet"

(qtd. in Hawi 223). Like prophets, Almustafa claims that he is not

the one spealng, he is spoken to and used as a mouthpiece:

"Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?" (The Prophet 97).

Originally, The Prophet was meant to be part of a trilogy.

He specified "the difference between the first two books by

saying that the message of The Prophet was that all is well, and

the message of the second book would be that all is beautiful"

(qtd. in Waterfield 256). After the publication of The Prophet

Gibran's physical health and mental calibre faced a slow down

and he could not fulfil his desire. When he passed away he was

working on the second book The Garden of the Prophet. Of the

third book The Death of the Prophet, only a fragment is left

behind, which says that Almustafa would return to the city of

Orphalese, "and they shall stone him in the market-place, even

unto death; and he shall call every stone a blessed name" (Young

119).
 Gibran longed to integrate his life and work. "His growing

awareness of an underlying unity within the phenomenal and

noumenal worlds was not mere intellectual assknt, but a

passionate conviction, a certainty that he now aimed to weave into

the fabric of his being: "I know now that I am a part of the

whole" (Jean and Kahlil 346). This is perhaps the reason why

Gibran was sure of success by 1923. Knopf recounts the author's

confidence regarding the success of the book: "Whenever I saw

Gibran in the few years of life that remained to him after 1923

and gleefully reported how well The Prophet was doing, his reply

was always the same - he shrugged his shoulders and said: "what

did I tell you?" (48).

Gibran was aware of the two extreme schools of traditional

thought regarding love: (1) the love of the body and (2) the love

of the spirit. These extremes teach either an extravagant

gratification of the flesh or an extravagant mortification of the

spirit. He too distinguishes two types of love, that of the body

and the mind, the physical and the spiritual. Referring to physical

love, he says

And there are among you those who are neither

young to seek nor old to remember;

And in their fear of seeking and remembering they

 shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or

offend against it.

But even in their foregoing is their pleasure. (The

Prophet 84)

This was a period of the past hermits and religious cloisters

according to Gibran. He sees no evil in the biological functions

of the body. He loves the body just as he loves the spirit, for

human existence is neither a pure spirit like the angels nor solely

flesh like the animals. Moreover, he believed that God made the

body as a temple for the soul. "He knew that an excessive

rejection of a bodily desire would not nullify the wish but

"repress it in the unconscious, until someday the desire would

burst out at the surface, causing damages to the psyche of the

individual." says Ghougassian in his article, "Love, the

Quintessence of Human Existence" (Sherfan 315).

To clarify Gibran's concept of physical love, Ghougassian

quotes a psychobiographical incident from Barbara Young's This

Man from Lebanon. When a lady asked Gibran, "But have you

never been in love?" with no embarrassment whatsoever, he

answered: "I will tell you a thing you may not know. The most

highly sexed beings upon the planet are the creators, the poets,

sculptors, painters, musicians - and so it has been from the

beginning. And among them sex is always beautiful, and it is

always shy" (Sherfan 317). Nevertheless Gibran was conscious

that physical love could be misused. He warns his readers against

the abuse of carnal love. According to his cybernetics of love,

pleasure is an essential part of life, but not to the point of

confusing it with the goal, happiness. When sex becomes an end

in itself, relationship becomes disastrous. Happiness is not

synonymous with pleasure or contradictory to suffering he says in

The Prophet.

Gibran does not consider the body, an evil principle, and the

spirit, a good principle, contradictory to each other. In fact, he

holds a midway position. He disagrees with exaggerated

spiritualism. Ghougassian opines that for Gibran "man is a sexual

being; and from the very biological fact that an individual is

identified as either a male or a female, it is clear that sex is a

reality diffused through all man's being ..." (Sherfan 316).

Gibran's concept is clear from one of his letters to Mary

Haskell: "To love, I must understand - even understand with the

body, too. When for instance I see a beautiful flower, my body

understands its beauty, is drawn to it" (29 Dec 1912 BP 113). Sex

for him was an energy that pervaded the whole man.

 Not being a philosopher who severs the body from the

mind, Gibran advises man to keep control over his bodily desires

and to be moderate in sexual life. Ghougassian explains Gibran's

concept thus: "Man should regard his sex-eros not as an end in

itself, but as a mode of expression for his disinterested love"

(Sherfan 322). At such a moment, Gibran believes, physical love

or Eros fuses into spiritual love or Agape to become a version

of genuine love and "sex is justified as soon as it becomes a

vehicle of love-agape" and this is the only way "Gibran sanctifies

sex" (Sherfan 322). Gibran's cybernetics of love includes honesty

"if one partner feels no real attachment for the other, then the

act is prostitution. . . . Gibranisn does not inhibit Eros, he simply

subordinates it to Agape (Sherfan 322-23).

Mary Haskell was once asked whether Gibran was sexual-

minded and she answered: "Kahlil is not sexual-minded, but

absorbed in bigger things" and she reaffirms that he transformed

his sexual energy "into art-production" (29 Dec 1912 BP 113).

However it is possible to believe that he did have sex with Mary

and others but he "had sanctified sex in his life and converted it

into Agape," says Ghougassian (Sherfan 326). Spiritual love was

also a strong point for Gibran. If the word 'Agape' was used by

the Greeks to refer to brotherly love, then Agape is the right

word for Gibran's cybernetics of spiritual love. "Gibranism is a

people's philosophy and not a philosophers's philosophy" says

Ghougassian (Sherfan 328). For Gibran, love is disinterested,

individualistic, generous, timeless, spaceless and universal as it

will be proved in this dissertation from the sections of The

Prophet.

The psychoanalytical approach to love is indicated in The

Prophet

Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but

store the desire in the recesses of your being.

Who knows but that which seems omitted today,

waits for to-morrow?

Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful

need and will not be deceived

And your body is the harp of your soul,

And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or

confused sounds. (85)

It is an accepted fact that the form of The Prophet is

reminiscent of Friedrich Nietzsche's Thtls Spake Zarathtlstra. In

both works, there are phrases and sentences reminiscent of the

Bible. Aphorisms, epigrams, and parenthetical sentences abound in

both works. But, Nietzsche was pessimistic while Gibran was not.
Nietzsche's mouthpiece, Zarathustra, is a Prophet like Gibran's

Almustafa. Zarathustra was in exile in an island as was Almustafa

in Orphalese. Zarathustra gives out prophetic wisdom topic by

topic just like the counsels of Almustafa. "The message of The

Prophet is light, confident and optimistic, and this is undoubtedly

the first aspect of the book that appeals to people" (Waterfield

258). As Gibran and Mary Haskell started polishing the section

on 'Farewell', Gibran acknowledged to Mary his indebtedness to

Nietzsche and pointed out the difference between Zarathustra and

Almustafa:

... Zarathustra has much beautiful poetry, and I

love it and love the book - But Zarathustra comes

down from the mountain. He talks two or three

minutes to an old hermit on the way - that is all -

Then he finds the townspeople waiting to see a

tightrope dancer, and to this crowd in their present

mood he begins to talk - like a God or a superman.

Of course they couldn't hear his real meaning. And

there's a certain twist in his doing it that way. There

was a twist in Nietzsche - a lack of balance in him as

an artist. He had an analytical mind. . . . And the

analytical mind always says too much. (qtd. in Jean

and Kahlil 352)

 170

At the end of the First Part of the book Zarathustra says, "Now

do I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you

have all denied me, will I return unto YOU'' (Nietzsche 51). But

when Almustafa bids farewell he says, "But should my voice fade

in your ears and my love vanish in your memory, then I will

come again" (The Prophet 98). At the beginning of the Part Three,

as Zarathustra gets ready to leave the Happy Isles for the world

he ascends a high moutain. Then looking at the sea and he says

"Ah, fate and sea! To you must I now go down!" (Nietzsche 105).

Almustafa also looks at the sea and says, "I shall come to you, a

boundless drop to a boundless ocean" (The Prophet 3). Mikhail

Naimy says: "Both are subjective creations, veiled with symbol

and metaphor sufficiently to hide their authors' identities from the

ordinary reader" (188). Though they are similar in form and style

they are different in substance.

Almustafa resembles the "Sufis of the East" (Naimy 189).

The influence of Sufi philosophy on Gibran makes The Prophet a

blend of the East and the West. Bushrui and Jenkins say that the

first level of Sufi teachings concerns personal behaviour and the

eternal and fundamental subjects central to life. "And which the

language and sentiment of The Prophet puts on constantly in mind

of the Bible and the English Romantics, the spirit and message is

Sufi to its very

 The Prophet contains all the major Sufi ideas like "the

universal self, the unity of life and death, the unity of body and

soul, the unity of good and evil, the unity of time and place, the

unity of religion, the unity of humankind and collective

responsibility, the divine in the human soul, and the relationship

between essence and form" (231). Gibran has in mind the Sufi

ideal of the Greater Self which is God. Bushrui and Jenkins find

in Alrnustafa a merging of Christ and Muhammad, the embodiment

of the "Perfect Man" in the Sufi tradition (231).

"The basis and the essence of the wisdom of The Prophet,

as revealed in his sermons, is the belief in the Greater Self"

says Hawi (224). It is the 'Greater Self7 that speaks to him and

through him. It is the same self that "becomes active while his

own self is passive and inactive" (224). Like a hunter, he hunts

the Greater Self of man "I hunted only your larger selves that

walk the sky" (The Prophet 87). The lesser selves are diverse but

they will realize that they are one when they desire to attain

perfection and "walk together towards your God-self" (37). The

same thought is expressed in the words: "It was the boundless in

you; / The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews"
(102). The 'vast man' according to Hawi includes within him, the

ordinary man and God himself. It means "the organic unity of all
men" and Almustafa uses the terms like God, life, ocean, flaming

spirit to mean the same. The ordinary man cannot be evil because

he is the root of God. Gibran believed that Evil cannot exist in

the root because the tree cannot bear a sound fruit when its

roots are evil. If man becomes God in the end, he cannot be

evil. Love is the most significant point for the Prophet. Hawi

opines that the Prophet considers Love "the chief virtue for

without it the individual cannot expand his self into a greater

self which includes all humanity" (225).

The universal appeal of The Prophet was predicted by Mary

as much as Gibran. She had written to him:

The Prophet came today, and it did more than realize

my hopes. For it seemed in its compacted form to

open further new doors of desire and imagination in

me, and to create about itself the universe in nimbus,

so that I read it as the centre of things. The format

is excellent, and lets the ideas and the verse flow

quite unhampered. The pictures make my heart jump

when I see them. They are beautifully done. I like

the book altogether in style. (2 Oct 1923 BP 416)

Gibran also showed Mary a favourable review in the

Chicago Post and expressed his happiness at the cordial reception

of the book:
 I have been overwhelmed with letters about it,

and many of the letters from people I never heard

of . . . Twenty days after the book appeared some

Syrian publishers tried to buy a number of copies

and there was not one left. . ..I read from it at the

Poet's Club. . . . And it was read in a church - St.

Mark's - first of all by (Butler) Davenport. To my

regret he read the whole book . . . but his spirit was

ever so good - and the reading gave people some

idea of the book. . . . You know, I had wanted it

first read in a church. (26 Nov 1923 BP 417-19)

In June 1924, Gibran showed Mary a letter from a woman in

Michigan who blessed him "for having written and in having

written The Prophet - and thanking him "in the name of thousands

of children" (5 June 1924 BP 426).

At this point, it has become necessary to highlight the role

of prophets in general, and the prophets of The Bible, in

particular. The prophets of the Old Testament are believed to

have moulded the course of Israelite history. There were four

major and twelve minor prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and

Daniel belong to the first category; and Hosea, Joel, Amos,

Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai,

Zechariah, and Malachi to the second category. In addition, there

were many other prophets of whom Moses was considered a

prophet without an equal. Chronologically these prophets may be

divided into four ages: 1) The eighth century prophets: Amos,

Hosea, Micah and Isaiah. (2) The late seventh and sixth century

prophets: Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk and Jeremiah. (3) The

Exile or the exilic period: Ezekiel and the Second Isaiah. (4)

The Post Exile period: Samuel, Elijah and Elisha. After four

centuries appeared John the Baptist, the last of the prophets of

the old covenant and the precursor of Jesus <http://mb-soft.

com/believe/ txo/prophet.htm>.

The Old Testament prophets are similar to prophets in the

Near East. They were considered mouthpieces of God, revealing

God's plan to the masses. In the New Testament, prophesying

was regarded as a special gift bestowed on a select number of

men and women until the second century AD. After that it was

associated with mystics and it lost its high regard. The New

Testament prophets are powerful persons within the Church who

spoke the word of the risen Lord with authority. Though ranked

only second to the apostles in importance, the prophet's word

was regarded as the command of the Lord. As prophets were

such authoritative figures and held in such high esteem by the

people, abuses were bound to set in. Christ himself had predicted

that such abuses would arise (Matt. 24: 11, 24).

Prophecy attained special religious significance in Judaism

and Christianity. According to Judaism, the prophet is an

individual chosen by God, often against his will, to reveal God's

intentions and plans to the people. As a bearer of divine

revelation, he often experiences God's overwhelming presence and

receives the strength to communicate to others what God has said,

even though this may lead to persecution, suffering, and death.

Christianity inherited the idea of prophecy from Judaism, and

Christians interpret Hebrew writings in the light of the teachings

of Christ, who is considered the prophet promised in

Deuteronomy. Indeed, in many respects Jesus was a typical Judaic

prophet. Prophecy was recognized as a gift in apostolic times, but

it gradually disappeared as the hierarchical structure of the

church began to develop toward the end of the first century,

discouraging individual inspiration. Christian visionaries throughout

the ages have often been called prophetic, but they never

achieved the status of the great prophets <http://mb-soft.com/

believe/txo/prophet.htm>.
 Islam accepts in principle the prophetic tradition of

Judaism, and regards Muhammad as the last prophet of a line of

prophets from Adam's time.

Gibran was imbued with the spirit of the prophets of

Judaism, Islam and, above all, Christianity. The Prophet was the

outcome of his desire to play the role of a prophet for the sake

of humanity. He wanted to redeem Syria and then America, and

subsequently, the whole world. That is why though The Prophet

received only less literary attention than The Madman and The

Forerunner, he was not perturbed. Though The Times did not review

it and Poet9 gave an apathetic review, he knew the book would

be a success: "For Kahlil Gibran was that rare phenomenon" as

Stanton Goblentz says in "Gibran's Companion to The Prophet"

(Bushrui and Munro 180). Behind sharp critical comments there

was an underlying acceptance. Even the criticism found in Poetry

was not against the book but about the spirit of the readers:

"Doubtless this book will awake response in many readers, for it

is not without beauty, but the essence of the book, which is its

spiritual significance, cannot satisfy the robust hunger of the

occidental spirit" (qtd. in Jean and Kahlil 372). The reaction of

the readers towards Gibran was mixed. N o leading journal in the

West reviewed Gibran's books on publication. He was omitted

from books on modern American literature. His literary and

philosophical worth was often questioned. But while some critics

considered him sentimental and sloppy, others adored him. "There

are those too, who, in blindly worshipping Gibran, as if one only

needed to read The Prophet for life's problems to vanish away,

have done him as much disservice as those who have pilloried

him for his unfashionable emphasis on tolerance and compassion

(Bushrui and Jenkins 21).

The greatness of Gibran is manifested by the honour given

to him by Boston, forty-six years after his death. In 1977, the

week of September 18th to 25th was declared Gibran Week. It is

surprising that a city like Boston should acknowledge that an

adopted son has left an indelible mark upon the city. The

highlight of the festivities was the dedication of the Kahlil

Gibran Park in Copley Plaza. There was also the unveiling of a

bronze plaque with the following inscription:

Kahlil Gibran, a native of Bisharri, Lebanon, found

literary and artistic sustenance in the Denison

Settlement House, the Boston Public Schools and the

Boston Public Library. A grateful city acknowledges

the greater harmony among men and strengthened

universality of spirit given by Kahlil Gibran to the

people of the world in return. (Shehadi 28)

In the "Forward" to A n Introduction t o Kahlil Gibran, Stefan Wild

describes Gibran thus:

Nietzschean rebellion, Blakean pantheism and the

oriental Sufi tradition flow together, blending in him,

into an apotheosis of the mystic oneness of the good

and the beautiful - an ever-recurrent "leitmotif" in

Gibran's writing, reflecting the feeling and thinking of

an epoch. Gibran's incantatory style, symbolic,

rhetorical, abstract and hypnotic, deliberately vague

and smoothly ecstatic, has set new standards for

Arabic prose. (Bushrui ix)

Barbara Young reports that at St Mark's, New York, every year an

adaptation of The Prophet is acted out as a religious drama. The

same church has a vesper service based on Gibran's words (qtd.

in Sherfan 30).

Whatever the pros and cons, Gibran redesigned for Knopf,

a special edition of The Prophet for the purpose of gift-giving and

automatically the sales went up without much advertisement. As

soon as The Prophet was published, Mikhail Naimy visited Gibran

in his Hermitage, a severely furnished modest studio cum

apartment. In "A Strange Little Book," Naimy opines that this

place "spoke not so much of prayer as it did of work" ( A n

Introduction to Kahlil Gibran 149). There was a cot which served as

a bed for the night and a lounge during the daytime. In addition

there were three upholstered chairs, a small bed-table and a

telephone. "The whole studio was cluttered with folios of

drawings, books and papers and the tools of creative effort -

brushes, paint tubes, pencils, pen, and inkwells" (149). This

humble surrounding housed the author of the strange little book.

The account may be more interesting from Naimy himself:

I had scarcely arrived when Gibran handed me a

letter and said, with a twinkle of deep satisfaction in

his eyes, "Read this, Mischa." The letter was from the

President of Colorado College and asked permission

to engrave a verse from The Prophet on the master

bell of the chimes of the college memorial chapel.

The verse was, "Yesterday is But Today's Memory,

and Tomorrow Is Today's Dream." As I hand it back

with warm, congratulatory words, Gibran looked at

me with eyes half moist and said in a grave voice,

"It's a strange little book, Mischa." (149)

That strange book was proof of Gibran's transformation. The

evolution of love from grief, from growth to grace makes Gibran

extend himself for spiritual growth. If "Love is the will to

extend oneself for spiritual growth," Scott Peck says, that love is

grace, a point mentioned at the beginning of this chapter (320).

"Genuinely loving people are, by definition, growing people" and

"people's capacity to love, and hence their will to grow, is

nurtured not only by the love of their parents during childhood

but also throughout their lives by grace, or God's love" (320-21).

Some people resist the call of grace, because it is a kind of

promotion by which one is called to exercise a higher

responsibility. Those who become aware of grace and accept it,

experience an inner tranquillity and peace. Therefore, "The call to

grace is a call to a life of effortful caring, to a life of service

and whatever sacrifice seems required. It is a call out of spiritual

childhood into adulthood, a call to be a parent unto manhood"

(322-23). Most people desire the privilege of adulthood and the

self-confidence thereof. But they do not desire to accept its

duties and obligations and responsibilities. There is no doubt that

it is difficult to grow up with grace. "Those who are the closest

to grace are the most aware of the mysterious character of the

gift they have been given" (329). Consequently, they prepare

themselves to be fertile ground to welcome grace. The journey

of spiritual growth requires preparation - courage, initiative and

independence of thought and action.

 All these Gibran had for sure. The Prophet, the internationally

acclaimed eponymous book which has now been translated into

more than hundred languages and which has remained one among

the ten best-sellers for fifty continuous years, speaks of the

psychobiography of the author. Gibran's courage, intiative and

independence of thought and action have helped him attain

spiritual growth. It is from a spiritual orientation he discloses his

cybernetics of love. Gibran received the call of grace to exercise

a higher responsibility towards mankind. He was gifted with grace

and so he could exercise his obligation towards man responsibly.

His love of man encouraged him to lead a life of service, to be

a parent to mankind. Thus, he attained grace. The evolution of

love and the attainment of grace is Gibran's cybernetics of love.